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Mandate of Terrible Charm Design
Okay so apparently I can't read the Solar charms in Lords of Creation without being filled with bilious rage and other such things. But I want to go through and figure out which of the charms in there are actually usable and good, because I'm sure there must be at least a couple which I'm just failing to notice due to all my senses screaming "what are they doing to my precious exalted?" Charms that destroy the setting These charms cannot be allowed to exist. It is plausible that they cannot even be allowed to exist in modified form. Generally, the reason they cannot exist is because they were poorly thought out and have unintended results which wind up making everything fall apart. Alternatively, they may merely go into design areas which were never meant to be filled in by Exalted writers, and so they destroy the entire game model in favour of "if you have this charm you win automatically". The new Excellencies Why do you even need new excellencies? They're bland, but they already scale well enough. The only reason for the perfect success Archery charm is because it's goddamn Archery. With perfect successes on anything, you can "roll" Lore to figure out what the great curse is in seconds based solely on watching someone pick up a cup (a difficulty 9000 action!) and then "roll" Occult to develop a Solar Circle spell that fixes it. How about "rolling" Awareness to figure out what will happen in the future? You can fix this by saying that high-difficulty actions are merely impossible rather than implausible, but that isn't very Exalted and some of the problems still exist. Melee: Unassailable Aegis of Dual Armament Woo! Scene-long perfect defenses! Scene-long perfect defenses are an entirely reasonable thing for people to have at Essence 5 and be incapable of accessing if they choose not to wear a shield for stylistic reasons! Fuck their stylistic reasons, shields are better than everything! I AM THE BEST CHARM DESIGNER EVER! Thrown: Acuity of the Far-Flung Hand Deserves a special mention for being a Permanent charm that costs 3 motes. How does that make sense? I do not know! This charm could also probably break the game, but it mainly doesn't make any sense. That said, is there anything to prevent you from throwing a knife to throw a knife to throw a knife to throw a stone to throw a leaf to throw a knife to throw a stick to write a letter to your local Satrap? War: Immunity to Armies Approach Does what it says on the can, with VERY small prerequisites. Incidentally, War Essence Flow does literally nothing because you can already use Reflexive actions freely in mass combat. This charm pretty much destroys mass combat. Integrity: Lion's Roar Recovery Infinite Willpower and infinite virtue channels, anybody? All it takes is Essence 4! The only caveat is that if your ST hates you for your terrible Lords of Creation cheese then he might choose to actively deny you the use of this charm. Not a big caveat. Incidentally, this is a prime example of "design areas that were never meant to be filled". Willpower and Virtue Channels are some of the most limited resources in the game, they're not supposed to be something you can just whip up a charm to completely ignore. Integrity: Zeal Famous for being the worst charm ever designed. It was unofficially replaced with Epic Zeal of (Virtue) in Infernals, which fills the same general area while making vastly more sense, being accessable to PCs and, well, not being utterly ludicrous. Performance: Infatuation-Gathering Idol Methodology What is this I don't even. BYPASS MDVs. BRAINWASH THE ENTIRE WORLD. FOR FREE. AUTOMATICALLY. BY DANCING IN YOUR SHOWER. Also has comically small requirements. Presence: Mind-Blanking Rebuke Pretty goddamn broken. Lets you ruin everyone else's killer combos for a low low price of 5 motes. You could probably kill anyone in the game within one or two actions with clever use of this charm. Only Essence 4! Presence: Searing After-Image Passion Broken as fuck, this is an obligatory purchase for all characters who engage in social combat. This also breaks the setting because of its effect on the Solar Deliberative. Investigation: Heaven's Gaze Let's hope nobody says the slightest detail about the Usurpation within creation while bathed in light greater than a candle-light! Even the millions of Dragon-Bloods who are involved! Occult: Power From Darkness Replaced in Glories of the Most High by the charms Glory to the Most High, Black Mirror Revelation and Primordial Principle Emulation, this charm serves an important purpose of giving an excuse for "batshit high essence Solars" but unfortunately comes with the side effect of automatically causing all Solars above Esssence 7 to be in limit break permanently. Depends whether or not you think that's okay, I guess. Dodge: Divine Witness of Utter Safety Life-long Perfect Defenses. GODDAMN. Also makes it impossible for much of the Solar bloodshed to have happened, because every Solar ever would have used this charm on every other Solar. I wonder if it carries through incarnations... Larceny: Elsewhere Fingers Lets you steal from Elsewhere! Something that it is canonically impossible to do. At Essence 5. This charm also arguably has no effect in most situations because it is impossible to steal attuned artifacts (doing so is kind of like saying "I steal your eyeball"), and many of the Elsewhere storage charms only work on attuned artifacts. Linguistics: Beautiful Essence-Born Rune Hey, you! Mortal! Do a course in Linguistics and you can gain access to a wide range of Solar Circle Sorcery! I'm sure it won't destroy the setting in the slightest for countless mortals to run around with godlike powers usable at will with no essence expenditure, no sir. Linguistics: Understanding of the Golden Tongue What the fuck happens if people learn more than one of these languages? Further, why would the Solar Deliberative even allow Solars to invent their own languages when they created exactly five languages to be spoken by all inhabitants of Creation based on their elemental direction in order to help with the stabilization of the elemental poles? Ride: Mounted Invincibility Companionship What is this I don't even. Gain +1 to Essence for riding a horse. Charms that are "merely" must-haves Archery: Lambent Bolt of Annihilation Essence x 5 lethal health levels instead of the piddling damage that Archery normally does? That's okay... Wait, it's also undodgeable, unblockable and deals that damage to everyone within essence x 5 yards? Wow, that clearly doesn't make it one of the best charms in the already powerful Archery tree. Thrown: Maelstrom of Celestial Dominance Scene-long perfect defenses against ranged attacks, also PEW PEW PEW. It is also relatively unclear how this charm works, but not by an outstanding amount compared to the rest of the book. Integrity: Sancrosanct Soul Retribution Another charm that doesn't make sense. Also, what the fuck is it with the author's obsession with the "essence flow" charms? Performance: Rocks and Storms Chorus Pretty fucking broken, but not game-destroyingly so. I actually think this is a pretty cool charm idea, but the design is seriously lacking. Resistance: Wound-Mending Purity Stance This is an obligatory purchase for Resistance-based Exalts. It is acceptable enough on the basis that Resistance-based Exalts don't have a huge amount going for them without this charm. Very low essence requirement though. Survival: Solar Flare Methodology Pew pew pew! Low essence requirement too! Craft: Glorious Halo of the Builder's Grace Scene-long invincibility for objects and structures. Athletics: Unparalleled Acumen Meditation This charm is so fucking powerful it's not funny. It doesn't wreck anything, but wow... now all Exalts can do everything covered by Athletics forever without spending any more motes or actions! At Essence 4, with minimal requirements. Stealth: Hooding the Solar Lantern Although you probably don't want to buy this charm too many times or it'll start getting in the way of intentionally activating your anima banner, it's still pretty awesome to buy once or twice. Replaced in Glories of the Most High by the charm Swallowing the Sun Charms that are vaguely balanced Archery: Golden Artillerist Method This charm is weaksauce, unless you get teleported into the distant future and there are essence machineguns or something. Skipping attunement for one shot at huge expense is not the sort of thing that most people would want to spend XP on. Martial Arts: Solar Hero Expansions Though admittedly the version of Adamantine Fists of Battle in Scroll of the Monk is vastly better and doesn't break fundamental rules of the game. This is ironic, because Scroll of the Monk is commonly considered the second worst source of charm design in 2nd Edition. Melee: Golden Destruction Cut This is powerful but not overpowered. It's just too bad that the person who wrote it has no clue how to write charms and so it is completely unclear as to how you even activate this charm in the first place. Also, does it instantly convert all damage to Holy, retroactively? It is very unclear. Melee: Sharp Light of Judgment Stance Not vastly overpowered by the standards of Essence 7 charms. It's just too bad that it's another charm that doesn't make any sense! Does it cost 1 mote per die or 2 motes? Who knows? Thrown: Torrent of Inner Light Kinda OP for an Essence 4 charm, but nothing gratuitous. Fortunately, this charm even makes sense! Performance: Catching the Sun's Glance I'm unconvinced that by the time you reach Essence 7 you really need the UCS to hold your hand and help you smite evil, but whatever. It's still a pretty acceptable charm, even if the setting ramifications hurt my head a little. Presence: Eternal Empress of Love Attitude This is actually pretty underpowered. Doesn't affect anyone you would want it to affect, costs a ridiculous amount and requires a huge amount of committed essence. There are underpowered low-essence Spirit charms that are more powerful than this charm. Resistance: Endurance of 10,000 Cuts Expensive as hell, completely unclear how it functions. Resistance: Incomparable Soul-Born Warstrider There's already a Celestial Circle spell that does this, but this one is significantly better, to the point where it's actually worth learning unlike the Celestial Sorcery spell. I like this charm, any excuse to get into giant mecha should be welcomed. Survival: Greater Blessing of the Day Not bad, not bad. Survival: God-King Benevolence What the hell, are the Survival charms actually okay? That comes as a small surprise. Awareness: Ever-Watchful Sentinel Dedication Permanent AND stackable with no limits! Okay, it was just poorly written. Dodge: Refinement of Flowing Shadows Replaced by Cobra and Mongoose Method in Glories of the Most High, although you could argue that this charm still deserves to exist. It's not wildly overpowered, anyway. At this point, I got bored of writing about balanced charms. It turns out that there are a number of charms though which do actually work. Many of them are underpowered or have poor rules design, but they aren't crazy OP like a lot of the other ones.